


Friends We Used To Know

by Polyoxyethylene



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: At least until season 2 anyway, Miraculous History, Ship Tease, Then this will all go to hell, but until then!, canon compliant AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-05-29
Packaged: 2018-06-05 12:39:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,965
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6704851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polyoxyethylene/pseuds/Polyoxyethylene
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Why would someone stop being a Miraculous holder? </p><p>Miraculous history has come to Paris in need of help, Adrien has some questions about the contents of his father's safe, and Volpina is back on the scene.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who's That Girl

“You are _late_ , Miss Dupain-Cheng.”

Marinette's face burned as she ducked into her seat next to Alya, biting her lip. It was hard being in school _and_ being Ladybug; Hawk Moth didn't respect a school schedule, and he wasn't the only problem Ladybug protected Paris from. “ _Sorry Miss_ ,” she said, in English. Their new English teacher preferred them to speak as much English as they could in her lessons, and Marinette didn't want to irritate her further. Miss, not Madame she'd told them, because this was English, Durand had only been at the school since the start of the year, but she had an infamous lack of patience for excuses.

“You and Mr Agreste will both stay behind after class,” she said, imperiously.

Adrien made a noise like a whimper, putting his hand in the air. “Miss,” he said, “I have a Chinese lesson--”

“Then you will be late for someone else's class,” Miss Durand said, cutting him off sharply. “Won't that be a novelty, Mr Agreste?” Her French was clipped and precise, with the strange accent that came from it being her second language. She was short, and slender, with her hair in a bun at the back of her head, and a permanent frown. Marinette didn't think she'd ever seen Miss Durand smile.

Alya waited until Miss Durand had done introducing her lesson. The bright side to English was that they were allowed to talk in class, provided Miss Durand didn't hear too much French being spoken. She encouraged the class to speak saying that languages are better learned when practised aloud, which meant Alya only had to keep her voice low to ask, “So why were you late this time?”

Marinette looked sheepish. “I left my textbook at home,” she said, which was half of a truth. She didn't like outright lying, but small lies, and fudging the truth, were necessary to protect her identity.

“So you weren't off having a little tête a tête with Adrien?” Alya asked, with a bright and mischievous grin. 

Marinette flapped, her cheeks burning as she ducked back in her chair. Adrien sat exactly three feet in front of them both; if Alya didn't keep quiet, he'd hear every word. “Alya!”

“He was late too,” Alya said, helpfully, or teasingly, “though not as late as you.”

“Why was he late?” Marinette asked, her interest piqued. She had been with Chat Noir, helping the citizens of Paris. One particular citizen, in this instance; the old lady had been stuck inside an elevator. Ordinarily, that kind of thing wouldn't have taken both of them to solve, but time had been of the essence, and Chat Noir had needed to break the elevator shaft open with Cataclysm for them to reach her.

“Lost track of time in the library,” Alya answered, casually, before giving Marinette another one of those grins. “I thought maybe it was with you and you were fixing your hair, since I haven't seen you all lunch” she teased.

Marinette's cheeks burned again. Oh, how she wished Adrien had lost track of time with her in the library. “No,” she said, mournfully, “I'm just forgetful.” A thought struck her. “You don't think he was with another girl, do you?” Where was Chloe? Or what if it was another girl? What if it was Lila? This could be a disaster!

“I'm sure you'd have been the first to notice if he had a girlfriend,” Alya answered, cheerfully derailing Marinette's building panic.

The rest of the lesson passed uneventfully, until the end. Miss Durand dismissed the rest of the class, and then said, imperiously, “Miss Dupain-Cheng and Mr Agreste, remain in your seats.” Marinette packed her bag, and gave Alya a wave, and a hissed instruction to go on without her.

Adrien's phone beeped in his pocket, and he pulled it out and winced at the screen. He was definitely going to be late.

They both looked up at the crash, and sound of screams outside the classroom. Mad laughter erupted from outside in response, and then a figure jumped into the doorway. “I am The Prankster!” He said, face painted pale, and bright purple hair topping what looked very much like a clown's outfit. “Now it's you who will be in deten--”

Adrien was already on his feet, but he and Marinette stopped as a long stick, the kind used to pull down the blinds on the high window of the classroom, caught The Prankster around the ear, making him flinch and jump. It jabbed him in the solar plexus, winding him, and then caught between his feet and pulled them out from under him. Miss Durand grabbed him by the shoulder and bore him to the ground the rest of the way, pinning him there with her knee.

She dropped her stick, and grabbed The Prankster's wrist, twisting it up behind his back until he cried out, and she could wrest an item from his grip. “Hold this, Mr Agreste,” she said, firmly, in French, “and don't drop it. It houses the akuma that has turned him into this, and we don't want it to escape before Ladybug arrives.”

Adrien and Marinette stared at her, mouths open. Adrien took the item, a hand buzzer, designed to deliver a small electric shock to whoever was on the receiving end of a hand shake, and looked at it, and then back at Miss Durand.

Miss Durand sighed. “I suppose, under the circumstances, I can waive your punishments. You look quite pale, Miss Dupain-Cheng,” she said, and it would have sounded kinder if her tone was more gentle, “go and get some air.”

“I should--” Adrien began.

“No, Mr Agreste,” Miss Durand said, “you keep hold of that, please. I doubt Ladybug will be far behind.” Her tone left no room for argument.

Marinette clutched her bag in both hands and looked from Adrien to Miss Durand before she headed for the door, her mouth a little o of surprise and incomprehension. Then she bolted.

Adrien looked down at the buzzer in his hand and turned it over with one finger. How had his teacher taken down an akumatised villain, identified the akuma, and removed it from him, all before he'd had time to react? She'd handled that stick like a pro, and she'd gone towards the villain, like he had, rather than trying to get away.

Ladybug entered the room, looking like she'd been running, and coming to a dead halt in the doorway. Adrien stared at her, his thoughts about his teacher coming to an abrupt halt. Ladybug was more captivating every time he saw her, from the way she walked, to the faint flush of exertion in her cheeks, to her pretty bluebell eyes. He could stare at her all day.

“Right on cue,” Miss Durand said, breaking the spell. She smiled, and it must have been the first time anyone had seen it. “Adrien has the akuma,” she said, indicating him with an open hand while she kept Hawk Moth's victim pinned.

“How did you catch him?” Ladybug asked, looking from Miss Durand, to Adrien, and back again. She looked dumbfounded to have walked in on the situation already remedied.

“I didn't do anything,” Adrien said, almost hurriedly. He'd been about to, certainly, a plan forming in his mind to get out of sight and become Chat Noir so he could fight, but Miss Durand had beaten him to it.

“That's not quite true,” Miss Durand said. “You reacted very quickly to protect your classmate.”

“But you--” Adrien began, in tandem with Ladybug, both of them looking at Miss Durand.

“You'd be surprised at the skills you pick up, as a teacher,” she said, in a way that suggested it explained everything, despite the fact that it explained nothing. “Incidentally, Ladybug, if you wouldn't mind checking on Marinette Dupain-Cheng? She looked quite shaken by the intrusion, and I expect a visit from me at her house would only upset her further.”

“Oh,” Ladybug said, fumbling a moment for her words, “oh of course. Naturally. I will, yes. Umm.” She looked at Adrien, then, and Adrien looked back at her. The eye contact seemed to last an age before Ladybug held her hand out. “The akuma, then,” she said, meekly.

“Yeah,” Adrien said, still staring at her, and handed it over. His fingers brushed hers as he did, and without the barrier of Chat Noir's suit, the sensation sent a ripple up his spine.

Ladybug swallowed, still staring at Adrien, and then forced her attention to the hand buzzer. She dropped it on the floor and stamped on it, breaking it with an audible crack before a black butterfly emerged. Ladybug looked intent as she brandished her yo-yo, snatching the akuma from the air as it attempted to flee. When she opened her yo-yo again, she gave it her usual farewell as it emerged, and made a second break for the nearest window.

Miss Durand stood up off The Prankster, who detransformed into one of the younger boys in the school, a 5e boy called Phillipe. He seemed utterly lost waking up from Hawk Moth's influence on the classroom floor, sitting himself up and looking at the assembled observers with wide eyes.

“Perhaps it's best if you explain,” Miss Durand said to Ladybug, gesturing towards Phillipe with an open hand.

Ladybug looked slightly stunned, still, but she nodded, “You might be right,” she agreed. Hearing that you'd become a supervillain was hard on people, especially when the initial amnesia was still at play. She never had worked out if the amnesia lasted for the long term or not, and she wasn't sure which of those options was the best. She bent down to Phillipe, giving him a kindly smile and offering her hand to him.

“I'll--” Adrien began, again, ready to offer to take Phillipe to the ambulance with Ladybug. There was always an ambulance, now; the emergency services had got used to sending one when there was news of an akuma attack.

“One moment, Mr Agreste,” Miss Durand said, her voice taking on that firm, teacherly edge once more, “please?”

Ladybug looked back at him as she helped Phillipe up from the floor, and then gave him a soft, almost apologetic smile. “Thank you,” she said, “for your help.” Her gaze lingered again before she turned her attention to Phillipe. “We should get you checked over,” she said, to his still confused expression, “I'll explain then.” With one last, fleeting glance back into the room, she led Phillipe out.

Miss Durand began, once Ladybug was out of earshot, “I expect you have some questions, Mr Agreste.” She looked at him, with the sharp, calculating eye of a teacher that knows you haven't done your homework, and is about to call you on it. “Ones which I may or may not answer.” Her tone was strange, and she looked pointedly at Adrien as she spoke. She picked up the stick she'd used as a weapon. “I'm sure you're used to that, however. Some things never change, do they?” She asked, turning her gaze away from Adrien, “Plagg?”

Adrien's heart skipped a beat, and then began to race. “I don't--” he began.

“I've known from the moment you walked into my class, Mr Agreste.” She stopped him, sounding again like the teacher she was, scolding a student. She put the stick away in a corner of the classroom, and then headed towards her desk, where she sat down. “It's all right,” she said, much more kindly, “I'm not going to tell anyone. You wouldn't be the first person I've kept this secret for.”

Adrien hesitated,unsure of how to deal with this confrontation when Plagg zipped out of his jacket, doing a small loop in the air. “Oh,” he said, sounding excited, “it's you, Bridgette. Do you have any camembert for me?”

Miss Durand gave the kwami a sour look. “Twenty years since I last saw you, and you think I still carry camembert for you?” She asked.

“You knew I was here,” Plagg replied, making what a stunned Adrien had to admit was a good point.

“Your optimism was always one of your better features, Plagg,” she said, and although her tone was dry, the corner of her mouth was pulled upwards. She opened one of the drawers in her desk, and pulled out a wheel of camembert, opening it, and pushing it towards Plagg.

Adrien could only look from his kwami, gleefully helping himself to cheese, to his teacher. “Who are you?” He asked, eventually.

Miss Durand smiled, sadly. “That's a long story,” she said.

Adrien stared at her.

“Many years ago,” she began, with a sad, faraway smile, “I knew a man who spent his spare time running around in a cat outfit,” she waved an open hand towards Plagg, demonstrating. “He always smelled of camembert, and I eventually met the reason why,” she elaborated, pointing towards Plagg with one hand. “Plagg's appetite doesn't seem to have decreased with time.”

Adrien laughed, awkwardly, still wrongfooted by the interaction. “No,” he agreed, “he eats everything.” Or tries to. He ran his hand into his hair, and asked the question that was puzzling at the back of his mind. “You really knew the last Chat Noir?”

Miss Durand nodded, and smiled, but that aching sadness remained. “I did,” she said, “I used to know a few Miraculous holders,” she explained, “but I was closest to Black Cat.”

“Where are they now?” Adrien asked, curiosity burning. A few Miraculous holders? Yet none of them seemed to be around now. He couldn't imagine giving up being Chat Noir. It wasn't just being with Ladybug, it was the friendship and trust he'd built with her, and the freedom that the mask of Chat Noir gave him. He could only really be himself with the protection of that mask to hide his identity. He couldn't fathom letting that go without a fight.

“That is a story for another time,” she answered, flashing him a wider, but still sad smile. “Though there are some things from back then that I've never forgotten.” She leaned down, reaching into her desk again, and pulled out a small paper bag, which she put on the table on front of him. “Pass these to Ladybug when you see her? Tell her they're for her kwami.” Adrien reached out and picked the bag up, opening it to look inside. “Tikki will know who they're from.”

“Tikki,” Adrien repeated, learning and memorising the name of Ladybug's kwami. The cookies in the bag looked homemade. “You made these?”

Miss Durand smiled, brightly, and for a moment, happily. She looked suddenly younger. “I usually share them with the other teachers, but they can go without today.”

Adrien was still stunned from the revelations. He had so many questions, but then his phone began to ring and snapped him from his reverie.

“That will be about your Chinese lesson,” Miss Durand said. “You should go.”

“But,” Adrien began, and then hesitated. He had to go to his lesson, and it wasn't as if Miss Durand was going to disappear from Paris overnight. He had another class with her tomorrow, after all. “Can I speak to you again?”

“Any time,” she said, “but if you're going to ask me if I know who the current Ladybug is,” she said, raising an eyebrow at him, “I wouldn't tell you even if I did know the answer. That's a secret that is hers to reveal, not mine.”


	2. Just Not For Long

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ladybug is suspicious, and she and Chat Noir set off to find out who Bridgette Durand is, and why she's here.

Chat Noir caught up with Ladybug that evening. He found her lurking on a rooftop, seeming lost in thought. She had to be lost in thought because she didn't react as he approached.

“You got an akuma this afternoon without me, my lady,” he said, by way of greeting.

Ladybug didn't look up at him, but she did answer, “Not exactly, Chat.”

He reached where she was perched, and crouched down to her eye level, following her line of sight to see what she was so intent on. “What are we looking for?” He asked, seriously. Something obviously had her attention, so it wasn't the time for play.

“That apartment,” she said, pointing into the middle distance, “third window up, second along. It wasn't me that caught the akuma this afternoon,” she said, finally tearing her eyes away to glance at him. “It was a teacher at the school. That's where she lives.”

Chat Noir found the window Ladybug meant, and his cat's eyes could make out the dim figure of a person bent over their work at a desk. “You think she's akumatised?” He asked.

“No,” Ladybug answered, and her voice was low, and thoughtful, “but the last time someone showed up and saved Paris from an attack, it was Volpina,” she said, before giving Chat a dark and slightly pointed look. “We both know how that one turned out.”

Chat Noir gave a bright, sheepish grin, and scratched the back of his head. “I was wrong about her,” he admitted, “I guess my instincts aren't as feline as my reflexes.” He watched for her reaction.

Ladybug just murmured, her expression deadly serious as she turned back to watching the window. “It was too neat,” she said, “she took the akumatised victim down too easily. It's suspicious.”

Chat Noir had to admit, Ladybug's instincts were much better than his own. He'd thought it suspicious too, but then he'd spoken to her. She'd known about Plagg, she'd even been carrying his favourite cheese in her desk, and Plagg had known her well enough to jump out of Adrien's pocket to greet her.

But why had she been carrying his favourite cheese in her desk? He wondered. She can't have known that today would be the day she'd broach the subject of his being Chat Noir. Had she been keeping camembert in there the whole time, since the first day she'd realised, waiting for an opportunity? Wasn't that suspicious in itself?

Maybe he'd been foolish to trust her, too easily swayed by her claim to have known the Chat Noir before. Plagg had been fine, though, and he'd called her by name, which had lent credence to what she'd said. Still, she had definitely been hiding something.

“Your kwami,” he began, looking at Ladybug. She looked at him sharply, and he felt his heart skip a beat as her bluebell eyes caught his, “is called Tikki, right?”

Ladybug blinked at him, and he knew it must be correct. “How did you know?” She asked, tilting her head and giving him a quizzical look.

Chat Noir frowned, and offered the paper bag full of homemade cookies to her. “Give those to Tikki,” he said, “and then ask her about who they're from. I think our kwami both know her.”

Ladybug stared at him for a moment and then took the cookies, opening the bag and peering inside. She looked up at him again, a question on her lips. “You think she's a miraculous holder?”

“I think she was one,” he said, with a frown, looking back at the lighted window where Miss Durand was still barely visible. Adrien had pondered that all afternoon, but Plagg hadn't been forthcoming about who she was except for someone his last charge knew. Adrien knew he'd need to more than merely know someone to introduce them to Plagg... Especially to Plagg, but for her to know Ladybug's kwami as well? “But if she is, then it's a bit of a coincidence that she's here, isn't it?”

Chat Noir could practically see the cogs turning in Ladybug's mind. She turned to him again when they hit a snag. “You've spoken to her?” She asked, her gaze like headlights, leaving Chat Noir to play the rabbit, or the deer.

“Well, I was coming to help you with the akuma,” he said, lying deftly, and it disturbed him sometimes how easily he could lie to her, “but you were already taking the victim outside, so I went to see if I could help inside. She,” he hesitated, giving Ladybug a cheshire grin that hid his awkwardness as he progressed to truths, “asked me to give you these, she said Tikki would know who they're from.”

Ladybug looked in the bag again and picked out one of the cookies to examine it. She gave it a careful sniff, too. “Vanilla and chocolate chip,” she said, before dropping it back into the bag. Tikki preferred sweets, cookies in particular, but that only begged the question of how this woman knew she'd meet Ladybug or Chat Noir to be handing these over. “Thanks, Chat,” she said. “Can you take over watch, for now?”

“Of course, my lady,” he said, cheerfully.

“Thanks,” she said again, standing and turning. Her yo-yo extended with a flick of her wrist, wrapping around a chimney, and she leapt, swinging her way back to the roof of the bakery. She checked the coast was clear, and detransformed before heading inside.

Tikki followed her as Marinette set the brown bag on her desk and opened it. The aroma of chocolate and vanilla wafted up, tantalisingly. “Do you know the person who gave Chat these?” She asked, turning to Tikki.

Tikki flew up and to the rim of the bag before she inhaled deeply, and made an appreciative noise. “They smell good!” Tikki said, opening her large eyes and looking at Marinette. “And kind of familiar,” she added, looking into the bag.

“Do you know who they're from?” Marinette asked, again. She was reluctant to let Tikki taste them until she was sure they were safe for her. She'd already discovered the hard way that kwami could get sick, she didn't want to find out they could be poisoned, too.

“They smell like Bridgette's,” Tikki said, giving Marinette a swift look that darted away again shyly. This was clearly not a topic the kwami wanted to broach. “She used to bake them especially for me.”

“She's Miss Durand, now,” Marinette said. “How do you know her?” Marinette asked, her voice soft, and her expression imploring. She still had one hand firmly on the paper bag, but Tikki didn't seem wary of the bag's contents. Marinette wasn't sure if that made her warier or not.

Tikki frowned, clearly uncomfortable with what she was being asked, but she said, after a long moment of hesitation, “She was the Ladybug before you.”

“Before,” Marinette repeated, and trailed off, letting the words sink in. She knew there had been other Ladybugs. Tikki had told her she'd been around for over five thousand years, there was a pictograph of Ladybug in the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, of course there had been others. It was one thing to know that, however, it was another to come face to face with one. She realised, dully, that she'd never before wondered how they'd _stopped_ being Ladybug. “What happened?”

Tikki settled down onto the desk. The kwami looked sad, which Marinette wasn't used to seeing, and for a moment she regretted asking. “Her Chat Noir died,” Tikki said, quietly. Marinette felt the hair begin to stand up on the back of her neck. “She couldn't bring herself to keep going on as Ladybug without him.”

*****

Chat Noir tapped on the window of the apartment, peering in curiously until the window slid up for him and he clambered through. Miss Durand looked different when she wasn't dressed for teaching. The bun was gone, replaced with a long, messy ponytail, and the pressed shirt and trousers were replaced with a t-shirt and sweatpants. She stared at him when he entered, looking him over from from the feet up. Then she tore her eyes away, turning to her desk. “I won't pretend this isn't sooner than I'd expected to be talking to you,” she said, and there was an odd tone to her voice. She sounded upset, and like she was trying to cover it with the teacher tone.

“Sorry if it's not convenient,” Chat began, hesitating near the window. Maybe he'd disturbed her during something. “I can come back some other time?”

“No,” she said, “no, it's,” she began, and stopped, and sighed, and shook her head. “You look a lot more like him than I'd thought you would, that's all.”

Chat Noir furrowed his brow, and then realisation hit. Of course, Black Cat and Chat Noir probably looked a lot alike, and she gave the impression that she hadn't seen Black Cat in a while. “Oh,” he said, breaking into a grin, and mussing up the hair at the back of his head, his other hand on his hip, “He was good looking too?” Chat asked, and then remembered that this was his teacher. “I guess we all look alike in the masks,” he said, hurriedly.

“Only if you don't learn to look past it,” Miss Durand said, giving him a soft smile. “Take a seat,” she said, gesturing to the sofa, “I was about to make a drink, would you like one?” 

He answered in the negative, and she disappeared into the kitchenette to make her own, leaving Chat to look around the apartment. There were boxes stacked in one corner, opened, but not unpacked. There were no pictures around either, the walls were bare, it looked as if she'd only moved in last week, and yet the desk was cluttered as if she'd been here for years.

“How long have you lived here?” He asked, when she emerged from the kitchen, carrying a mug of steaming tea, and, to his secret delight, a plate of fresh cookies like the ones she'd had him pass on to Ladybug.

She looked around, to see what had caught his attention to prompt that question, and eyed the boxes she had stacked in the corner of the room with a rueful smile. “A few months,” she explained, “but this apartment is much smaller than the house I came from. I have more things than I have space for.” She offered the plate of cookies towards him, and he hesitated. “You're suspicious,” she said, when she saw.

“No!” He said, hurriedly, “it's just--”

“It's a good thing, Chat Noir,” she said, cutting him off kindly. “I know a lot about you, and Ladybug, I worked out your secret identity, I've only been in Paris a short while,” she smiled at him, “you _should_ be suspicious.” She offered the plate of cookies towards him again, “But I'm not out to hurt either of you. If you want the truth,” she said, “I was going to contact you anyway, and the akuma today forced my hand. I'm looking for someone, and I need your help.”

Forced her hand, he thought, or presented her with an unmissable opportunity. She held him behind class for lateness more often than he'd like, but she held people behind for a lot of reasons. Today, she'd had a good excuse to single him out, and get him to stay, while she sent Marinette off. He wondered if she'd been planning to leave the Camembert for him, with a note, or something. It would have been less flashy, and made Ladybug less suspicious of him. “Who are you looking for?” He asked, tentatively picking a cookie off the plate.

“That's the problem,” she said, putting the plate down on the tiny coffee table and clutching her tea in both hands, “I never found out her name. All I know is that she's another miraculous user, and she went by Paonne.” She took a sip of her tea, and sighed, before she placed that on the coffee table too. She went to one of the boxes tucked into a corner, crouching down to search through it as she spoke. “I took the job teaching English at the school because a lot of the students of that school have been akumatised. It would put me at ground zero for future akuma attacks, and if you're trying to find someone with a miraculous,” she said, pausing in her search through the books resting in the box to throw Chat Noir a glance over her shoulder, “well, it's easier to find the villains and wait.”

Chat Noir tried the cookie while she rummaged. He took one tentative nibble, sitting himself cross legged on her sofa, and then finished the rest of the cookie in two bites before he leaned forward and picked up another one. “Here,” she said, finally, standing up with a large scrapbook, and cradling it in both arms as she made her way to the sofa.

The book seemed heavy when she opened it, pulling the pages apart to land somewhere in the middle. Chat saw newspaper clippings, with headlines in English and colour photographs of someone in red, and someone in black, as she flipped on another couple of pages, and then came to a stop. The clipping on this page showed someone in red, and someone in blue, or green, and Miss Durand passed it over towards Chat.

It was Ladybug, but not his Ladybug. Her eyes were dark, her hair was divided into two long bunches, with long red ribbons coming from them, and she looked thinner than his lady, her hips and shoulders more angular. If you looked, he realised, really looked, past the mask, you could see she was Miss Durand. Younger, certainly, but the shape of her face and the shape of her eyes were definitely Miss Durand. The other one was a blonde woman, petite and slender, with peacock feathers at her back. They had hold of each other to the elbow, and seemed to be sharing a moment, a farewell, or a thank you. Both of them looked intense.

Ladybird's New Ally? The headline proclaimed, in English. Chat Noir couldn't make out the bulk of the article to make sense of it. “That was the first time we met,” Miss Durand said. “She saved me from a crazed magician.” She looked at Chat, with a frown, “There were no akuma then, they're a new development, thanks to Hawk Moth. Before he was around, our villains were magically inclined and usually politically motivated. I stopped someone blowing up London's Houses of Parliament three times one year.” She added, sounding weary with the memory and picking up her tea. “I don't miss _all_ of it.”

“Why did you give up the miraculous?” Chat Noir asked. She hadn't just been close to previous Miraculous users, she'd _been_ one, and now she wasn't. He couldn't begin to understand why someone might give their Miraculous up.

Miss Durand frowned, looking away from him. “Go ahead a few pages,” she said, finally. “You'll see.”

Chat Noir looked at her, and then did as she instructed. There were more clippings, of Lady _bird_ and _Black Cat_ , the names similar but different, the appearances likewise. Black Cat was tall, with longer blond hair than his own, and a habit of carrying his staff on one shoulder. His suit was different too, Chat noticed, couldn't help but notice. The belt looped twice around his hips, the bell looked bigger, and he was suddenly intensely thankful that Plagg hadn't seen fit to grace him with thigh high boots like Black Cat's. He flipped through more pictures cut from the front of newspapers, or magazines, turning to another one of Black Cat and the woman in peacock feathers, then Ladybird and... “Volpina?”

“She went by Reynardine,” Miss Durand corrected. “Volpina was just an akumatised approximation, but Reynardine was the _master_ of illusions. She got us out of more than one tight corner with her tricks.”

Chat Noir frowned, continuing to turn pages. There were more shots of the same, of Ladybird and Black Cat smiling, waving, being congratulated for stopping some disaster. They looked close, as close as he and his Lady, and flipping through pictures you could see them growing closer. Black Cat's hand moved from Ladybird's shoulder, to her hip, to her waist, and Ladybird went from serious to happy.

When he turned the next page, the newspaper cutting wasn't stuck down, and it slipped into his lap. He picked it up, to find it wasn't a cutting at all. It was the whole front page.

_Tragedy On London Underground_. The photograph wasn't of the smiling faces of a past Ladybird and Black Cat, either. There were British police, and an ambulance, and just visible in front of the burning building was the lady with the peacock feathers, holding onto Ladybird tightly, while Ladybird doubled over and screamed.

“I tried Lucky Charm,” Miss Durand said, very quietly, “to put it all right again, but it was too late.” Her voice wavered as she explained, “The suit will protect you from blows that would flatten you, but it can't stop you breathing in smoke.”

Chat Noir felt a lump forming in his throat. He remembered how his heart had stopped when he'd watched Ladybug jump into a dinosaur's mouth. For one all too long moment, he'd thought she was gone, and the only way he had been able to fend off the feeling of the world collapsing around his ears was to fight on blindly.

The woman in peacock feathers was holding onto Ladybird tightly, arms wrapped around her waist as if stopping her from charging in and meeting the same fate. He knew exactly how that moment must have felt, but for Ladybird, it hadn't ended. Her Black Cat hadn't prised open the jaws of death the way his Ladybug had.

“Let me give you some advice, Chat Noir,” Miss Durand said, her voice still soft. “Your emotions can be a strength, or a weakness. You're enamoured of Ladybug, and that's not a bad thing,” she said, giving him a piercing look. Chat Noir started, sitting up straighter, ready to protest, and found his protest died in his throat.

“Is it that obvious?”

Miss Durand smiled, and there was amusement in it. “When she walked into that classroom today, you were little better than starstruck.” And Ladybug had been the same, she didn't say. If he hadn't seen it, it was for the best, for now. “You're hardly the first to fall for your partner, and you won't be the last, but you can't let it become a weakness. When she's in danger, and she will be in danger, you have to keep your head. You can't let your emotions make you panic, because those moments are when she needs you to be Chat Noir for her.”

“I'd never let my Lady down,” Chat Noir said, with an unusual intensity. He'd never intentionally let her down, but he'd been possessed, and made to attack her on more than one occasion. The guilt and horror of that still nagged at him.

Miss Durand looked at him, her expression sly. “Good. You're two halves of a whole power,” she said, with a faint smirk. “Good fortune, and misfortune, creation, and destruction. In tandem, there is _nothing_ they cannot achieve. She needs you as much as you need her; without the other, your power is _more_ than halved.”

Chat Noir stared at her, his eyes wide. She had to be talking rhetorically, because Ladybug had taken down four against one before, which had, horrifically, included himself. That couldn't have been her at less than half power.

“There is no akuma you cannot take down together,” Miss Durand said, at the expression on his face. “The only thing that can destroy you both is if your love for her becomes a weakness the villain can exploit, instead of a strength that keeps you together.” She sighed. “That's what happened to me,” she finished, quietly. “I loved Black Cat, with and without the mask, but when I lost him, I couldn't pick myself up and fight on, even when people needed me. I couldn't justify keeping the miraculous if I couldn't bring myself to fight without him.” She bowed her head, looking saddened, and ashamed.

Chat Noir felt that lump in his throat again, and he put his hand on Miss Durand's arm. She sounded defeated when she spoke about losing Black Cat. Knowing she'd once been someone else's Ladybug, Lady _bird_ , made his throat tighten. Would his own Lady sound like this if anything happened to him? She may not love him, as Ladybird claimed to have loved Black Cat, but still, Chat Noir thought, they had that partnership, that bond of trust. Losing it was as unpalatable an idea as losing her. 

“So you're in Paris to find Paonne?” He asked, changing the subject. It was getting hard to talk about the love and loss of a previous Ladybug, when her love so mirrored his own.

“Yes,” Miss Durand said, seeming glad of the drift in topic. “I don't have much to go off. I know she's Parisian, and since I gave her the Miraculouses, and they resurfaced here, I knew she must have come back here, but other than that, I've been hoping that she'd show up to support you and Ladybug.”

Chat Noir folded one arm across his chest, holding his chin in his other hand. Paris did sound like it had been a good place to start, but it did raise the question of _why_ Paonne, or any other miraculous user, had failed to surface despite the threats they'd faced. There had been more than one occasion where Ladybug at least could have done with a little extra help because he'd been, well, indisposed, and there had been a few close calls for both of them. “My miraculous showed up out of nowhere,” he admitted. He hadn't questioned it at the time, either, he'd dove straight into using it, seeing the miraculous as a way out of the caged life he'd led since his mother had disappeared. “Would Paonne have given them to us, and then left?”

“No,” Miss Durand said, with iron clad certainty. “She wouldn't look at Paris's troubles right now and abandon the city to them, especially not with two juvenile miraculous users to defend it. She wouldn't have left you in that danger.”

Chat Noir tried not to let himself become riled at being called a juvenile miraculous user. To a former Ladybug, they were comparatively inexperienced, he reasoned. She didn't seem to mistrust him as Chat Noir, not with the warning she'd given, and she wasn't telling him he was too young to do it. It was just that he was less experienced than the Black Cat she'd known. Still, it rankled. “We've done pretty well at defending Paris so far,” he said, pointedly.

“Yes, but you're both teenagers,” Miss Durand said. “Your power and bond is still developing, and you're facing a type of enemy we never did. It's a big risk to let you both take without anyone watching out for you. Paonne,” she frowned, thoughtfully, glancing at the picture of Paonne holding her back from running into a half collapsed building, “would have stuck around to make sure you were both okay.”

Both teenagers, Chat Noir noticed. So Ladybug must be around his age, and Miss Durand must have worked out who she was. Someone he knew, perhaps? Someone else at his school, for Miss Durand to know her. The thought sent a thrill down his spine. “So you think something happened to her?”

“That's what I have to conclude, for now,” Miss Durand said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ladybird = The British English name for a Ladybug. Also, in England, a black cat crossing your path is good luck, not bad, although this superstition is slowly being replaced by the one non-British readers will be more familiar with.
> 
> I chose the name Reynardine in part because of the European fables of the anthropomorphic fox trickster Reynard (in all the spelling variants). Also because any Gunnerkrigg Court fans out there might appreciate the nod to another trickster fox based on the above.


	3. Too scared to worry

At home in his room, Adrien retrieved some camembert for Plagg and took to his computer. The news articles weren't that hard to find, but decent translations of them were. He ate the cookies Miss Durand had insisted he take with him despite his warning about the perils of feeding stray cats as he worked.

In the end it was nearly one in the morning before he went to sleep, reams of paper and translations printed off so he could give them to Ladybug next time they met. He'd managed to find some good quality pictures of them all, Ladybird, and Black Cat, and Reynardine, and even one of Paonne in the peacock feathers. Paonne intrigued him, so did the mentions of Reynardine, the miraculous user Volpina seemed to have cribbed from. He wished, desperately, that he hadn't lost his father's book, but it wasn't as if he could go and find a replacement, either, or ask if his father had another copy. He still didn't know why his father had--

_There had been a peacock brooch in his father's safe._

“Plagg!” Adrien hissed, sitting upright in bed. “ _Plagg!_ ”

“What?” The kwami's voice was whiny, complaining. “Do you know what time it is? Get some sleep.”

“I need to get into my father's safe again.”

“Now?” Plagg asked, half incredulous. “It's the middle of the night, Adrien!”

“I can't think of a better time to do it,” Adrien answered, already climbing out of bed. “Come on!” He didn't wait for further argument, and picked up the resting kwami in one hand.

The mansion was eerily quiet at night. Adrien didn't have to creep, but instinct made him do it anyway, his bare feet making less noise than a cat's across the floor as he stole through the mansion, and up to the portrait of his mother. He'd stared at this portrait a lot after his mother disappeared, willing himself to always remember her hair, and her eyes, and her smile. He'd been scared that those memories were fading, that he could only recall them in front of pictures, and what that might mean. Until he'd seen Ladybug smile, and the memory had flashed across his mind, arcing brightly. She had his mother's smile, and he'd noticed without having to compare her to a picture. He wasn't forgetting his mother.

It had been such a relief.

“Open it,” he whispered, holding Plagg out in an open hand.

Plagg made a complaining noise and muttered, “I want a whole wheel of the very best camembert for this.” Then he darted forward, through the painting, and the safe behind it. Adrien carefully pulled the painting back as he waited for Plagg to open the safe.

The kwami emerged again, whining, “There, now where's my camembert.”

Adrien ignored him, easing the safe door wider and peering inside.

There were papers. Lots of them, and sketchbooks that turned out to be filled with his father's designs, but the safe was curiously and infuriatingly empty of any peacock brooches. It was more full than it had been last time, but the only thing in here now that had been in there then was the picture of Adrien's mother, smiling out of the frame.

“Where is it?” He asked, not expecting an actual answer.

“Well, you stole your father's book. Maybe he decided this isn't _safe_ ,” said Plagg, grinning at his own answer.

Adrien frowned. He'd been sure, for a moment, that he'd found _an_ answer to a mystery, but it only posed more questions if that was the case. Did his father know the brooch might be a miraculous? Was it, even, a miraculous? Lila had worn a foxtail necklace before she'd been transformed into Volpina, but it hadn't been the actual miraculous. Miss Durand had called her 'an akumatised approximation', so the real fox miraculous had to bestow similar powers, but what did that imply about Hawk Moth, being able to confer the power of an unknown miraculous to someone?

Did Hawk Moth know about Reynardine, and the fox miraculous? He was certainly able to mimic the powers of a miraculous, Chat Noir had learned that the hard way facing off against Copycat. Did he have to know about the powers to mimic them, or could he do it with any?

For that matter, how had _Lila_ known about the fox miraculous to get hold of a copy and pretend to be a miraculous user?

Unless...

Lila had to have had his father's book. Hawk Moth, and Chat Noir, and Ladybug had all been in there, they were all he'd seen. Paonne and Reynardine must be too, and Lila had seen them, which meant she'd seen them without Adrien.

“First thing tomorrow,” he said, closing the safe and turning to Plagg, “I'm going to ask Lila about my father's book.”

“No,” Plagg told him, “first thing tomorrow, you get me my camembert, and then you can ask Lila about your father's book.”

“I don't know if you deserve camembert, Plagg,” Adrien said, leaning against the safe with one hand and narrowing his eyes at the kwami. “Was there a miraculous in this safe the last time you broke in?” Had his kwami just... failed to mention something as significant as that? “Would you know if there was?” Adrien asked, suddenly wondering if that was why Plagg hadn't bothered to say anything. He loved Plagg, in the same way that people loved small, annoying pets that ate you out of house and home, but he couldn't shake the feeling that Plagg was, well... Really _irresponsible_. He'd looked at a book that contained pictures of Hawk Moth and Ladybug and hadn't cared. Surely not even Plagg's irresponsibility could extend so far as to ignore another Miraculous, though?

“Only if it had a user,” Plagg admitted, with obvious reluctance. “I can sense other Kwami,” he said, “but not if they're dormant,” he explained, with a tiny shrug of his shoulders and flick of his ears. “If it isn't connected to a chosen bearer, it could be indistinguishable from any other piece of jewellery. I don't know what the other miraculous look like to recognise them when they're not in use.”

Adrien sighed, his shoulders sagging. He was tired, and he had school in the morning. “So it could have been a miraculous,” he said, quietly, concerned about the implications for Paonne if it was and Plagg hadn't been able to tell. “I need to find that book.”

*****

Lila still wore her foxtail pendant, Adrien noticed. He hadn't really spoken to her since he and Ladybug had freed her of the akuma. She'd tried speaking to him, of course, had tried to tell him some tall tale about how she'd been akumatised, and been rescued, and of course Ladybug was jealous because Chat Noir had flirted with Lila and given her his phone number.

Adrien had stopped her there. On the one hand, it was kind of flattering to be at the centre of someone's fabrications so they could make themselves seem more interesting, but on the other it was also kind of sad. He knew what it was like to desperately crave friends, but lying about yourself to win them wasn't how you made real friends.

“You don't have to pretend,” he'd said, gently, putting a hand on her shoulder. “I know what it's like to start here without really knowing anyone.”

Lila had taken it as an affront, and avoided him since. Upsettingly, the only other person who seemed to be making an effort to be nice to Lila was Marinette. Marinette was just like that, gentle and compassionate and kind-hearted, and even she lost patience with the constant lies Lila told. The others, like Juleka, and Rose, just avoided Lila, or were like Chloe and openly goaded her about her lies.

Chloe was the one who announced, loudly, “I heard Chat Noir gave you his number,” and then challenged Lila to call him. Lila tried to claim that she couldn't very well call him now because it might reveal his secret identity, and she had to do it at night, when he could be Chat Noir. Chloe's scoff had consisted of, “You don't _have_ his number. Everyone knows Chat Noir is nose over tail for Ladybug, what would he want with you?”

Adrien had cleared his throat and scratched the back of his neck, hoping his face wasn't flushing. Behind him, he heard Alya laugh, and Marinette choke. Chloe could, he remembered, be horribly perceptive at the most inconvenient of times, but openly challenging Lila like that in front of everyone was just mean.

“Leave her alone,” he said.

Behind him he could hear Marinette also saying, “That's enough, Chloe.” Adrien glanced back over his shoulder and gave Marinette a quick smile, glad to have her on his side. 

Madame Bustier finally entered the room, silencing the class, but Adrien could see Lila silently fuming at her desk. When the class was over, Lila practically fled, and Adrien abandoned Nino to chase after her.

“Lila!”

“I don't need your pity,” Lila spat at him as she marched ahead, angrily rubbing at her cheek. Adrien realised with a pang that she might be trying not to cry.

“I don't pity you,” he said, jogging to catch up to her and putting his hand on her shoulder. “I can empathise,” he said, as she stopped and turned to look at him, “but I don't pity you.” She had, after all, brought it on herself. Why she couldn't just stop lying was something he couldn't understand. If she let this vulnerability show, people would be nicer. Well, Chloe wouldn't, that was just Chloe, but there would be more people making an effort to be nice to her than himself and Marinette. “I have a question,” he said, keeping his hand on Lila's shoulder as she stepped around to face him properly.

“What is it?” She asked, and he could see for certain that yes, she'd been fighting tears.

“Do you remember that book, with the superheroes?” He began, knowing full well that she wouldn't forget it in a hurry. “I've lost it.”

“You think I'm a thief?” Lila asked, indignation and anger crossing her expression, and she pulled back out from under Adrien's hand.

“No,” he said. _Yes_ , he thought, but he couldn't very well tell her that he knew she must have taken the book to get a copy of the fox miraculous because that conversation opened up a whole other can of worms, “but I was with you when I last had it, and I hoped you'd remember where I might have left it.”

“I haven't seen it since we were in the library together,” she said, shortly. “Try there.” With that, she turned again, and continued her march off towards the next class.

Adrien sighed, watching her retreat. Maybe, he thought, if she was simply too ashamed to admit to having taken it, she'd come to him later with some lie about how she'd amazingly found it for him. He'd give her a day or two, he decided, and then maybe Chat Noir should have a talk with her about the book's whereabouts, instead.

Patrol that night was uneventful. Hawk Moth only seemed to be able to capitalise on the negative emotions of people, and it looked to be a day where no one had been sufficiently wronged to be vulnerable to his control. Chat Noir met Ladybug at the top of the Eiffel Tower after their separate circuits, and bowed to her with a smirk.

“It seems we're all alone,” he told her, playfully. “What do you say we make the most of it?”

Ladybug threw him a glance out of the corner of her eye that would, if it hadn't been accompanied by that amused glimmer of a smirk on the corner of her mouth, have warned him off. “Good idea,” she said, “I could do with an early night.”

The grin that cracked Chat Noir's face lit up like the tower they were standing on. “Care for some company?”

“Sorry, kitten,” she told him, rolling her eyes, “I'm not allowed pets.”

Chat Noir sighed, placing one hand against his chest. “You wound me, my Lady,” he said, before he perked up and unzipped one of his pockets. “Perhaps some bedtime reading, then?” He offered the produce of last night's research towards her. He'd had to fold it twice to get it to fit into the pocket, and even then, it had been a squeeze.

Ladybug took the papers with a frown, unfolding them and beginning to read. “So,” she said, after a long silence, flicking through to the pictures Chat had printed off, too, “that explains a lot.”

Chat Noir nodded, sitting himself on the edge of the tower and looking out over Paris. Paris was genuinely beautiful at night, especially this high up. Ladybug also sat down, examining the picture he'd obtained of Reynardine. He'd taken the time to write on it that this was a genuine miraculous, with the same powers as Volpina. “How is Hawk Moth making villains that have the same power as a Miraculous we don't know about?” She asked, and Chat got the impression she was asking herself.

“Maybe he knows about all of this,” Chat Noir said, pointing to the papers Ladybug was still reading. “Or maybe he can copy any Miraculous, like he did with Copycat, and Antibug.”

“They weren't perfect copies,” Ladybug said, absently, “but that's a worrying prospect.”

“Or maybe he already _has_ the fox Miraculous,” Chat Noir said, darkly. He had a lot of unanswered questions about the peacock brooch in his father's safe, too, but it could have just been a brooch. Or maybe it was a design copied from the book. Not that the book didn't raise all of its own questions. Thinking about it for too long made Adrien's head spin.

“What makes you say that?” Ladybug asked, looking up from the papers again to regard him, critically.

Chat Noir frowned. It was time to be honest with his Lady. “I asked Miss Durand,” he said, and then realised he probably shouldn't have called her that, not 'miss'. Ladybug, however, didn't seem to notice. “When she gave up the Miraculous, she gave three of them to Paonne,” he said, “yours, mine, and that one,” he pointed at the fox tail necklace barely visible on Reynardine. “Ours are obviously safe,” he explained, “but that one hasn't been seen since, and Paonne disappeared, too. If they're out there, then why haven't we met anyone with them?” Paonne at least, if Miss Durand was right, would have made herself known by now.

Ladybug screwed up her nose in thought, looking at the pictures again. “You did well, kitty,” she told him, scratching her fingers under his chin in a gesture that sent a happy thrill down his spine. There was someone she had to go and talk to, she knew. Someone who knew more about the Miraculous than she did, and, if Chat was right, the person Paonne must have given them to.


	4. Fear is Withering the Soul

Marinette had debated telling Chat Noir about the Great Guardian. In the end, she hadn't, but the fact Ladybug was keeping it from Chat Noir niggled at her uncomfortably. They were supposed to be a partnership, but here she was, keeping secrets. It was just that Chat Noir had a kwami too, and if his kwami hadn't determined that it was time for him to meet the Great Guardian, then maybe the person under Chat's mask just wasn't ready for it. Tikki had brought her to him when it was necessary, Marinette had to trust that Chat's kwami would do the same. The kwami were thousands of years old, after all, they knew more about any of this than Marinette did.

But it still niggled at her to know she wasn't sharing all the information she had with her partner.

She clutched Chat Noir's research to her chest as she waited to be called in. The Great Guardian had turned out to be a little elderly gentleman named Fu, and Marinette had met him before. He'd been the one to heal Tikki when she'd fallen ill. She had the sneaking suspicion she'd met him some other time, as well, but the memory always eluded her. Of course, she had to have met him some other time, because he was the caretaker of all the dormant Miraculous. He was the one that had selected her for Tikki. He was the one who had selected whoever Chat Noir was, too.

He let her in silently, closing the door carefully behind her, and said, “You have some questions?”

“Yes,” Marinette said, nervously. She followed him into the centre of the room, and stayed standing until she was invited to take a seat with a wave of his hand.

“And what questions can I answer for Ladybug?” Fu asked, as he walked around to take his own seat on the floor, facing her.

“It's,” Marinette began, fighting her nerves down. She held the papers out to Fu as she continued, “about these people.”

Fu took the papers and read the article with a frown. Marinette swore she could see him sigh, and a sad frown cross his face, but he looked up at her and said, “You should not concern yourself with what befell previous Miraculous holders, Ladybug.”

Marinette frowned, awkwardly. “It's not that it concerns me, exactly,” she told him, her voice soft, “but the last Ladybug is here, in Paris, and she's looking for the woman with the peacock Miraculous. She thinks something might have happened to her, and I think she might be right.”

Something in Fu's expression became unreadable, and he looked down at the article again. Chat had done a good job translating it into French, and he'd annotated both the article and the photographs with further information he'd found.

“If there are other Miraculous holders out there,” Marinette said, “and they need our help, then I want to help them.”

Fu smiled at her, then, and Marinette felt her nervousness melt away a little. She wasn't intruding, or prying, to be asking about this. She simply wanted to help, and if she'd found out about this and hadn't wanted to help, then she wouldn't be fit to be Ladybug, would she? “There's also the fox Miraculous,” she began.

“The fox Miraculous is safe,” Fu said, before she got any further. Paonne's was another matter, he thought, but it at least hadn't been corrupted as poor Nooroo had or Wayzz would have said something. Still, it made Fu wonder just how many cards Hawk Moth was keeping close to his chest.

“So Hawk Moth doesn't have it,” Marinette said, her shoulders sagging with relief. Unfortunately, that left a different worrying possibility on the table, “Does that mean he can copy the power of any Miraculous?”

Fu frowned as he looked at Marinette. “His power is to make another person his champion, and the form they may take as his champion can be similar to a Miraculous,” he admitted. “They will merely be similar, however. They could never be as powerful as the real thing.” For Marinette to think he'd copied the fox miraculous, she had to have faced one similar. That could be problematic. The power of the fox was illusions, and trickery. Used properly, it could convince someone to give up the fight.

Perhaps it was time, Fu thought, for yet another Miraculous to find a new home.

“That's good to know,” Marinette said, relief evident. She clasped her hands in her lap and bit her lip before she asked, “How do we find Paonne?”

“If the owner of the peacock miraculous does not wish to be found, Ladybug,” Fu said, looking her directly in the eyes, “then there will be little we can do to find her. Our efforts would be better placed finding out what she is hiding from.”

“Could it be Hawk Moth?” Marinette asked. If she'd been the only Miraculous user left aside from him, she may have disappeared to keep her Miraculous, and those around her, safe from him.

“That is a possibility.”

*****

“Their battles are going to get more difficult, Wayzz,” Fu said, once Ladybug had left. He'd answered what he could for her, but the whereabouts of the peacock miraculous raised many more questions than it could possibly answer. Wayzz couldn't sense it, he knew, so it must currently exist without a master, whether that be because the rightful master had removed it themselves, or had it forcibly removed from them.

“Yes, master,” Wayzz said, looking at Fu. He watched as Fu made his way to the old gramophone and opened it, revealing the miraculous stones currently under his care. The number was growing ever smaller; only the fox and the bee remained in their places. “Are you sure that is a good idea?”

Fu picked up one of the last Miraculous remaining in his care, and slipped it gently into an empty box, a miniature of the larger one. “I have only made one mistake in my time, Wayzz,” he said, “and it was not with her.”

“You remember what Paonne said,” Wayzz began, uncertainty colouring his voice. “Losing the cat broke her will.”

“I am not asking her to become Ladybug once more,” Fu said, closing the box, and giving Wayzz a smile, “I am giving her the chance to protect the new one.”

Bridgette Durand was not hard to find, but, for Fu, no one was. She was seated alone outside a coffee-house, a stack of papers on the table in front of her, weighed down in the slight breeze with a pen. Her coffee was steaming, and a half-eaten slice of cake sat next to it, as she busied herself marking her way down the paper she was reading with a red pen.

“Is this seat taken?” Fu asked, taking hold of the empty seat at her table.

Bridgette looked up at him, her face more lined, and her eyes older than the last time he'd seen her. She'd known pain, he knew, it was written on the lines of her mouth and her eyes, and that spark that he'd seen when he'd first selected her to be Ladybird was gone. The fires that spark had lit, however, that he could see still burned, deep and low inside her. She looked at him just long enough for him to know she was trying to remember him, that she knew that she should remember him, before she said, finally, “Of course not, help yourself.”

“Thank you,” he said, hoisting himself up into the chair, and earning a small, stifled noise of protest from her. She seemed to resign herself to his intrusion when he said, “Age is not kind to old limbs.”

He caught the flicker of a smile at the corner of her mouth before she said, “Age isn't kind to anything.”

“Ah,” he said, resting his cane against the table and clasping his hands, “it is kind to wisdom, and experience.”

“Some people might prefer knees that don't ache,” she said, drily, turning back to her marking.

“Some aches are worse even than those of old knees,” Fu said, gently, but pointedly. “Hearts, for example.”

She looked up at him without moving her head, staring at him for a long, long moment, her mouth etched into a frown. Then she closed her eyes, inhaled slowly, and sat straight backed in the chair. “Who are you?”

“You remember me,” he told her.

“I don't,” she said, plainly.

“Then,” he said, pulling out the little box and putting it on the table in front of her, “you remember this.”

She pressed herself back in her chair like she expected the little box to explode. A muscle twitched in her jaw. “There's already a Ladybug and a Chat Noir,” she said, eventually, keeping her stiff position back in the chair.

“They will need help,” Fu said, “you know this. The challenges they face will only grow.”

“They can handle it,” she said, her voice growing whisper-quiet. “And if they can't, then someone else can help them. I can't do that again.”

She wasn't looking at Fu, he noticed. She was speaking to the box, her eyes wide, and her voice cracking. The breeze picked up, fluttering the stack of papers next to her and shifting the pen, but she didn't twitch. “There is no one better placed to help them than you, Bridgette Durand.”

She shook her head, finally dragging her eyes away from the box. She looked pale. “I can't,” she said, reaching out with one hand, and pushing the box back across the table towards him. “I'm not fit to carry a Miraculous, I'm not the person you want.”

Fu smiled, picking the box back up, and secreting it into his pocket. “There are some parts of being Ladybird that will never leave you,” he said. “You will find them,” he told her, “and then you will find me.”

Bridgette shook her head. “I'm sorry,” she said, “you have the wrong person.”

Fu slipped down from the chair, and retrieved his cane. “We will see, former Ladybird.”

Bridgette watched him go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and the comments so far, it's really meant a lot to me, and I appreciate every one of them. This story is written to completion, but I am still editing and rejigging scenes, which may slow down the update schedule by a couple of days. On the whole I'm aiming for uploading a new chapter a week.


	5. Prayed to the Moon

The book still hadn't turned up by Monday, and Lila avoided Adrien all day. He made a point of going to the library, and scouring the shelves, just in case Lila had tried to return it there. At the end of the school day Adrien jumped into the limousine with a scowl, and a plan.

It was Chat Noir that left Adrien's bedroom via the window, and tracked Lila across the city. He found her browsing in a cosmetics shop, and decided to stay out of sight for now. Pinning her down in the middle of the street would attract attention Chat could do without, especially if he wanted to convince Lila to confess and hand the book over.

He watched her looking at lipstick, trying a colour out on herself, and then put it back. She picked up another colour, tried that, put it back, and another, and then she looked up, glanced around, picked up the first lipstick again, and pocketed it. Chat's eyes widened. She walked deeper into the shop, out of his view, and he slunk down to try and catch sight of her again. A few minutes later, she emerged, with a little bag containing at least one genuine purchase, but Chat doubted she'd paid for the lipstick in her pocket.

He followed Lila as she walked along, happily. She turned onto a street that wasn't as busy. This was probably the best opportunity he was going to get. He dropped down behind her, and asked, “Mind if I check your receipts?”

She turned sharply to look at him, her eyes wide, looking like a startled cat, and then she settled. “Chat!” She greeted him, expansively, “I'm flattered you're looking out for me.”

Adrien smirked and leaned on his staff. “We like to check up on past victims from time to time,” he told her. “No more trouble from Hawk Moth?” He asked. “No akuma?”

“No,” she told him, smiling brightly. “The way I behaved was so out of character, I hope you don't think badly of me,” she said, fluttering her eyelashes at him.

Adrien murmured, drawing his staff closer as he walked nearer Lila. “I'd think better of you if I hadn't just seen you stealing.”

The change in her was immediate. She tried to be innocent, to brush it off, saying, “I don't know what you mean!” But her eyes moved, looking for an escape route, and her body language became defiant, instead of defensive.

“I don't think that's the first thing you've stolen, either,” he pressed on. “I think you have a book belonging to Adrien. You should give it back.”

“I don't have Adrien's book,” she said, straightening up and looking at him with narrowed eyes. “Did he send you after me?”

Sort of, Chat thought, but he wasn't about to tell her that. “He just said he was with you when he last saw it, but I know that necklace is in it,” he said, taking a small and educated guess, and from the widening of her eyes he knew it had hit the mark, “and then I saw you stealing in the cosmetics shop, so I have to wonder what you did with the book?”

Lila looked cornered, and angry, her face colouring and her eyes watering. “He dropped it in the library,” she said, snappily, “I picked it up.”

“So you saw the necklace, and bought a copy, and decided to pass yourself off as a superhero,” Chat said, finishing the sentence for her, since she seemed unwilling. The anger burning in her eyes and on her cheeks told him he was doing a much better job at following her unseen actions than she'd like. “I don't care about any of that,” Chat said, trying to reassure her, “it's in the past. I just want Adrien to get his book back.”

“Well too bad for you,” Lila said, sneering at him, “because I don't have it.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I threw it away.”

“What?” Chat exclaimed, the potential loss of the book hitting his panic button. “What did you do that for? Where?”

Lila just shrugged. “I don't remember,” she said, lightly, seeming to take pleasure in his reaction, “but it's gone. Too bad for you, superhero.”

Adrien felt his blood boiling. That book hadn't been her property; it hadn't even been _his_ property, and she was so cavalier about its fate, as if she was enjoying upsetting him. He grabbed Lila's upper arm. “Fine,” he snapped, with a scowl, “but you still have to pay for that lipstick.”

He marched her back to the shop, Lila struggling against him, and pleading with him as he made her return. Chat Noir marching an unhappy girl into a make up shop drew some glances and comments, but once he'd forced Lila to produce the lipstick she'd pocketed, the course of events clicked into place for observers. Lila was given the choice of paying for the lipstick, or having the police called. With great indignation, she paid for the lipstick.

She held onto her composure by the skin of her teeth while Chat and the onlookers from the shop were watching. She couldn't let them see her cry, she couldn't let them know she was embarrassed. She left the shop, head held high, rounded the corner, and stalked away. Once she'd put a couple of blocks between herself and the site of her embarrassment her composure slipped, and Hawk Moth in his lair looked up. 

“Yes,” he said, feeling Lila's anger and hurt at being publicly shamed by Chat Noir. “Volpina is ready to awaken once more.” The little white butterfly landed on his hand, and he fed into it the darkness it would carry to the girl. She'd been a powerful one, as an akuma victim, relying on manipulation rather than raw strength. She was uniquely gifted on that count. He released it through the window overlooking the Parisian skyline, sending it off to follow the scent of her anger and wounded pride.

It didn't take long to find her, and the butterfly flapped in front of Lila. Her eyes widened, her hand covering the necklace she wore, and the butterfly landed on the lipstick on in her other hand. “Volpina,” Hawk Moth asked, making contact with her at last, “you know what you must bring me. Are you ready to take revenge on Ladybug and Chat Noir?” She was, of course, he could feel it. She still burned from the first encounter, and now Chat Noir had opened up an old wound.

“Yes,” she answered, giving in to that darkness without a fight, embracing it, even. She raised the flute to her lips and played an eerie little song before casting an illusion of Ladybug, and Chat Noir. “Let's see how they like it when everyone turns against them,” she said, with a wicked grin.

*****

By the time Volpina's illusory Ladybug had attacked the mayor, declaring him corrupt, and a fraud, unfit to govern the city, and the illusory Chat Noir had declared that they would run the city now, the real Ladybug and Chat Noir were on the rooftops.

“If you keep that up, the crowd is going to crush you like a bug, my Lady,” Chat said, an amused grin on his face, as he landed near Ladybug and retracted his staff back into its handy baton size. She was crouched, watching her doppelganger address an increasingly irate crowd.

“I'm not the one _caterwauling_ that we should be the new rulers of Paris,” she replied, casting Chat Noir a smirk. She was trying to work out how it was being done. They didn't seem to be akuma, and it would be unusual for Hawk Moth to do two at once anyway. His victims had always been hurt in some way, and the form they took was usually related to the hows and whys of that emotional turmoil. Chloe had been upset at Ladybug's treatment of her when she'd become Antibug, and Copycat had been a fan of hers that was jealous of Chat. Finding another two people who, at the same time, had been distressed by or about both of them to such an extent that they could take their forms when akumatised sounded unlikely.

Which meant that something else was going on here. She turned away from the scene unfolding below to look at Chat. “Surely no one's convinced that's me?” He was saying, his head tilted and nose curled. “He's nowhere near as attractive as the real thing, _and_ his puns are terrible! I can't let my reputation be sullied like this,” he declared. Ladybug grabbed his tail before he'd even begun to move.

“ _Your_ puns are terrible,” she told him, flatly. “It's probably a trap, kitten,” she said, turning back to the spectacle down below. “Whoever it is wants to draw us out. Let's circle round and search, first.” Search for what, she wasn't entirely sure. Someone staying out of sight, perhaps, like they were.

That was when the Chat Noir down below said something to really upset the audience. A chorus of booing rose up, and someone threw a projectile. It was a simple water bottle, but it sailed through the air. Chat dodged, but it came within an inch of Ladybug and then--

“Volpina?” Ladybug asked, her back straightening. She'd seen things that looked entirely solid disappear into orange mist once before. “How is that possible? Can someone be akumatised twice?” She looked at Chat, and saw the grimace on his face. “What is it?”

“Maybe they have to be really upset?” He offered. His expression was a picture that painted a thousand words, and his voice rose, awkwardly. He put one hand on his hip and scratched at the back of his head, flashing Ladybug a much too wide grin.

“What did you do?” Ladybug asked, sounding like a teacher, or a mother, dragging a confession from a child.

“I caught her stealing,” Chat said, dropping his awkward stance to look down at the scene below. Chat was now threatening the crowd with his staff, and it didn't seem to be working. A cruel laugh came from the rooftop opposite, and Ladybug swung down from it. Another illusion, obviously. “So I made her confess and pay for what she stole, but I don't think it's the first time she's stolen something.”

“What makes you think that?” Ladybug asked, processing the rest of the information. Whoever was behind this, and it did look like it must be Volpina, clearly felt they'd been served a particular injustice by Ladybug and Chat Noir. Volpina was a tough opponent, though, not because she fought hard, but because she used trickery. Ladybug had almost given up her Miraculous last time, twice. She couldn't afford to let Volpina expose those weaknesses in her again.

Chat sounded less than smooth as he hurried to explain, “Well, there's a book, and you remember Adrien, from last time? It's his, and it's gone missing, and he needs it back, so I said I'd help him find it--”

Ladybug's eyes went wide and the corners of her mouth pulled into a grimace. “I have Adrien's book,” she said, awkwardly, and then looked at Chat as he stopped dead in the middle of his rushed explanation.

“You do?”

Ladybug frowned, biting her lip. She hadn't intended on telling Chat Noir, but not telling him felt wrong. “I saw Lila throw it away, and I picked it up,” she said, fudging the truth. Guilt washed over her as she said, very quietly, “We can't give it back to Adrien, Chat. I would if we could, but that book's important. I don't even know why Adrien had it, but,” she faltered, looking at her partner with renewed determination. She kept enough secrets from Chat, she didn't want to keep another one if she didn't have to. “There's someone you need to meet. He'll be able to tell you how important that book is.”

Chat Noir looked at her as if it was the first time he'd ever seen her. A thousand thoughts raced through his head. “Who?” He asked. How important was that book? It was just an encyclopaedia, right? Or was it? Where had his father got it? Why had his father got it? He felt like he was standing on the edge of a huge precipice, and the idea of taking a step forward terrified him because he didn't know what he might find out.

“Later,” Ladybug said, putting her hand on his arm and giving it a gentle squeeze, which she matched with her reassuring smile. “Let's stop Volpina first.”

Chat Noir looked into the smile on his Lady's face. His heart was roiling with the questions he needed answered, and didn't know if he really wanted the answers to, but the look in her eyes calmed the internal storm. They had a job to do, and he needed to trust his Lady, and that whatever the answers to those questions proved to be, she'd be stood right by him. He nodded, just the once, and his Lady smiled at him again, saying, “We'll circle round, and see if we can find her. She has to be somewhere she can see what's going on.” She stood and turned, her hand leaving Chat's arm at the last possible moment, and he watched her whip her yo-yo out and zip away to the next roof over.

He wasn't even sure how she made him feel like this, he thought, as he stood, and turned in the other direction. Did she know she made him feel like this? He'd never been able to tell her, after all, not really. He extended his baton, and launched himself over to the next roof.

There was no sign of Volpina on that roof, or the next, or the next. Chat wondered if Volpina could make herself invisible with her illusions? He wished now he'd asked more about what Reynardine's powers had been. If Volpina was an akuma copy of a real Miraculous, her powers were similar, and might work in similar ways, and have similar limitations. Could she use two different illusions at the same time? How far away from her illusions could she be?

It would have been useful to know this stuff, he realised. It was news to learn that someone could fall victim to an akuma twice, and it wasn't comforting news, either. He shuddered to think of some of the akuma they'd faced making a return appearance. Princess Fragrance, The Puppeteer, Dark Cupid... especially Dark Cupid.

He spotted Ladybug ahead of him and did a sweep of the last rooftop before he vaulted over to her. “Maybe she's further out,” he began, turning his gaze back to the plaza in front of the hotel as Ladybug made her way towards him. “Or inside--”

He spotted the movement on the periphery of his vision. Something swung towards his head, quickly, and instinct made him duck before he'd even processed what was happening. He backed off sharply as Ladybug advanced on him, holding both his hands up. “Wait, My Lady, it's me!” He cried, and then dove for cover as her yo-yo swung at him again.

What had gotten into her? Could she be seeing him as Volpina? Or had she, perhaps, encountered another illusionary copy of him on her way here? In which case, well, he was hardly going to admit to being an illusion to her, was he?

Volpina's illusions didn't last through being hit, he remembered. Even the smallest contact dispelled them. He was just going to have to take one for the team, he realised, but it only had to be a glancing blow to prove he was really himself.

Just his luck.

He jumped out from the safety of the chimney he'd been hiding behind. Ladybug was still there, her yo-yo whirling, as if she'd been waiting for him to run, or attack. “Buginette,” he said, seeing her move to attack with the yo-yo, and he moved to catch it on his arm. He'd been beaned in the head by Ladybug's yo-yo enough times in his life already, and they had been accidents, or she'd pretended they were anyway; he didn't want to know what it felt like to catch a blow to the head that was meant to land there. “It's m--” he repeated, as the yo-yo came towards him, and then disappeared in a puff of orange smoke, along with Ladybug.

That was an illusion too.

A scream erupted from the street below, and Chat Noir dove to the side of the roof. One of the women in the crowd was screaming, and pointing, and from the roof opposite, too far away for him to catch, he saw Ladybug plummeting from the roof to the street below, he yo-yo trailing uselessly. “Ladybug!” He shouted, eyes wide with horror.

Orange smoke erupted when she hit the street. Another illusion. Chat Noir gripped the edge of the roof in his claws, willing his heart to slow down, and his breath back under his own control. For a moment, panic and fear had gripped him.

“Chat!” He heard her shout, somewhere to his right, sounding like she needed help, and he got up to run to her. “Chat Noir!” His head whipped around as her voice now came from another direction. He looked across the roof opposite and saw his Lady weaving and ducking strikes from an illusion of himself. Another scream from the street showed him another copy of himself, having a similar battle with another Ladybug. She didn't want to hit him, for the same reason he didn't want to hit her; what if this was the real one?

He couldn't attack the Ladybugs, he realised. Not without risking hurting his Lady, but he could attack the other Chat Noirs, because he knew none of those were real.

He vaulted down to the plaza below and swung his staff at the copy of himself Ladybug was fighting. He turned to smoke, and Chat grinned for a moment before the Ladybug did too. He saw Ladybug swing down from the roof above and obliterate a copy of herself as she swung through it, and he raced towards her, only for her to turn to smoke as soon as he reached for her hand.

Another shout from the rooftops drew his attention, and he saw Volpina dragging his lady back from the roof. Anger flared in his chest and he extended his staff to take himself back up there when her voice called down to him from elsewhere, “Ignore it, Chat, it's just an illusion!”

“Where are you, my Lady?” He called out, looking around. There were three separate fights between himself and Ladybug taking place around him, his own face peered down at him from one of the rooftops, lost looking and alone, searching the crowd, another roof bore witness to another copy of himself and Ladybug fighting.

He had no idea which one was really her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more to go! I'm tweaking the fight scene at the end before I post it because three weeks after having finished it, I'm unhappy with it again, so I apologise for any delays that may occur.

**Author's Note:**

> The full story has been written and chapters will be updated on a regular schedule. Also, I am not American, and do not use American spellings, sorry if this causes any confusion.
> 
> This is my first fic in any fandom for a long time, so all the kudos and comments are really appreciated. If you want to see more of my writing, I can be found at http://miraculousloser.tumblr.com


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